Just Jack
by Dingbat142001
Summary: Oneshot. It took 3 months of digging, but he had finally found Kensi's wayward Jack.


**Title: Just Jack**

**Rating:** FRK  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I do not own any of the characters or situations that are familiar to you.  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> Seasons 2  
><strong>Summary: <strong>It took 3 month of digging, but he had finally found Kensi's wayward Jack.

This isn't how I had initially planned on this turning out, but this is the end result, nonetheless.

* * *

><p>The perks of being NCIS' Liaison Officer are endless: sweet gigs, big guns, and near death moments that make you feel like you were in a James Bond film. Of course, the more practical reasons would be: exciting atmosphere, close comradery, doing good the citizens of Californ-I-A... and having a partner like Kensi who is a Hell of a lot more attractive than the dudes at the P.D doesn't hurt.<p>

Another perk? Your clearance is through the roof. He could probably order a sandwich from the D.O.D and they'd give it to him... laced with cyanide on three-year-old moldy bread just for spite, mind you.

The point remains, his security clearance went up 10 extra levels since joining this highly skilled, super stealthy detachment of magic and voodoo known as NCIS, and that's how he's able to track down Jack the Marine.

Marine Jack, or Just Jack as Deeks liked to call him, it turns out does has a last name, as stated on his driver's license. He also has a couple speeding tickets, the obvious build of a Marine, and a chiseled jaw that would probably make that Ian Som...ethingorother jealous. His license says he's average weight, average height and averagely average.

His mug shot on his license is pretty average too... aside from the aforementioned chiseled jaw, a neatly cut shock for dark hair and dark eyes with a crooked smile.

Alright, Marty Deeks is as straight as they come, but he knew a good looking man when he saw one. Sue him.

Aside from the parking tickets (and you know, the PTSD), Just Jack leads a pretty clean, average,...dull life. He lives six hours north of Cali on the outskirts of Sacramento in a quaint little suburb with a school down the street. His front yard is always mowed (on Saturdays), his flowerbeds are nicely pruned (also on Saturdays), and his American flag hanging above the garage is bright and in pristine condition. Everything about his home says it's owner thrives on order, structure and routine, maybe even a little predictability. Just Jack's daily routine is the same. He leaves for his office job at 8:30am., and is home by 5:30pm. Even though he has a small backyard, he walks his dog, a golden lab named Piper, three times a day and always brings a Frisbee. During the second walk, he jogs and usually wears his old beat up service clothes. He'll go to bed around 11. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

He lives alone.

No wife, no kids.

He has a couple of friends that stop by every-so-often, and he's on warm, friendly terms with his neighbours, but he seems to lead a pretty solitary life. It's odd. He's a good looking man, he could have whoever he wanted but obviously just chooses to live his life that way. Or maybe the right girl hasn't come along...

Or maybe the right girl was already left behind?

Both options are unsettling for Deeks. When he first started this pet project, he wasn't sure what he was wanting to find. The partner in him was wanting to find some closure for Kensi, yet at the same time, the partner was also wanting to hate him. It was hot-wired into his system the day he learned of Just Jack's existence. PTSD is one's own personal Hell, but inflicted with it or not, this is the man who hurt, abandoned his partner, his friend and he deserved some sort of Karma for it. To now learn that Jack lives alone, probably by choice, well... Karma happened, but it didn't come with a level of satisfaction he had expected.

If he were also being honest with himself, Deeks kind of hoped Jack had moved on. Yes, it would be some cruel kind of fate for him to have found something in someone that he somehow couldn't find in Kensi, but knowing Jack had moved passed everything, it might help Kensi. It's true, nobody had any idea she even had a fiance at one point, but her serial dating, her lack of building trust towards anyone, it might have all come from the one that got away.

Regardless, it is what it is, and she, and Jack, seem to be in their own good place, worlds apart. She, a Junior NCIS Agent who never does the same thing twice; he, a man who never does anything different.

It's hard to accept that maybe this is for the best, but maybe, it just is? Kensi, it seems, has accepted her life the way it is, and seems to kind of embrace it. She goes to work every morning (using different directions each time) and leaves every night, never having made any effort to search for her missing Marine even though the resources were at her disposal. 'Maybe I was hoping he'd come looking for me.' Maybe she thought he was better without her? Maybe, some cruel part of her thinks of what her life is and ponders that maybe she's better without him?

Jack, he appears to accept his routine, too. He goes to work every morning, stopping at the same sets of traffic lights and seeing the same people cross the street, and comes back every night, never taking the time to find a woman from his frightening past.

Never taking the time to find any woman.

Probably wanting to save them from himself, Deeks can only presume, for which, it's kind of admirable, but the perpetually single man he is knows there is nothing admirable about forcing loneliness on yourself. It sucks, but given a line of work that requires constant sabotage and deception, it's kind of a must.

It's kind of hard to fathom where Kensi might have been had Jack returned the same Marine she'd been engaged to. Would she still have been NCIS? Would she have done something different and accepted being a Marine's wife? Would she have three kids by now? Would she etcetera etcetera etcetera...

He doesn't like to think about it. Just like he doesn't like to think about what his life would have been like if his father's shotgun had of went off, or if his hadn't, or if he kept with his law career instead of trading in the books for the badge.

There's not point in dwelling on it, but as he sits parked down the street of Just Jack's small, humble abode (his third stakeout in as many weeks), Deeks can't help it. Without nothing to stop them, the thoughts just kind of float by.

It's warm on a calm, bright, Saturday afternoon. Just Jack has surprised the seasoned detective and instead of getting the lawnmower out, produces a paint can and brush from his garage and begins to re-paint his front porch in a matching off-white. It's unpredictable of Just Jack and maybe it signals that the PTSD isn't ruling his life... or maybe it just signals that Jack noticed bubbled paint or bare wood on his deck and decided to pretty the place up?

Who can say?

No one can except Jack.

Starting the car, Deeks pulls out the space he's occupied for the past few hours and passes by the house that just looks like every other house on the block; the houses that people driving by pay no attention to, and the people that everyone else pass without a thought.

As he's done for weeks, on the drive back Deeks will ponder what to do with what he's learned. He'll acknowledge that his own curiosity got the better of his partner's (and her ex-fiance's) privacy, and he'll acknowledge that telling her would be both helpful and heartbreaking. He'll think about telling her. He'll also think about not telling her. He'll think about the woman Jack fell in love with and the woman Deeks knows her to be today. He'll wonder if they're any different.

That one, only Kensi Blye can say.

Just Jack, or Jack Campbell as people know him, is doing well. He leaves for his office job at 8:30am., and is home by 5:30pm.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Author's Note:<strong>_ I had a totally different idea for this, but this is what came out. ~ No, Jack's last name has never been said, but I liked the name Campbell... regardless if there's a hockey player with the same name. ~ The name Just Jack is a Will&Grace reference.


End file.
